The public were told back in March/April this year, get vaccinated and that we will still have cases but it wonât matter how big that number is no mote restrictions. Yet here we are high case numbers and yes it will continue to rise. Again and again the social contract between the government and citizens has been broken. We have the highest vaccination rate in Europe yet the highest cases. Something isnât right.
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They were only injecting Paddy with whishhhkeyy all along
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The Irish canât be trusted with drink in them.
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Thatâs not my recollection. Certain people may have said that, my recollection is that they were mainly in the media and the commentariat.
It was pretty obvious at the time that the situation would unfold in an uncertain manner.
In March and April this year Delta was not widely known about, though the possibility of such a variant was, or should have bene known about. I was the first person here to caution about the existence of Delta, or B.1617.2 as it was known at the time.
ISAG have continually said that vaccines would not be enough to get back to 2019 normality. They were vilified on this forum for that. But so far they have been proven absolutely correct.
I continually pointed to the vaccination rate in the overall population - as opposed to adults - as the only relevant figure. Again, this was correct, and I got pelters for that realism.
There is a problem here. A large cohort of people on this forum and in society, letâs loosely call them OIUTFers, decided to buy wholesale into the idea that this would be all over by the end of summer.
Realists continually urged caution. That advice was ignored by the OIUTFers. The only people OIUTFers should be angry at for choosing to believe that the pandemic would simply disappear is themselves.
And the unvaccinated.
We do not have the highest vaccination rate in Europe, Portugal does and they are well ahead of us. The way to look at vaccination rates is to count the unvaccinated because they drive it.
If you have 25% unvaccinated, thatâs 1.25 million people.
If the vaccine is, for argumentâs sake, 80% effective against infection, thatâs 20% of the remaining 3.75 million who are likely to catch it vaccinated in a no restrictions environment, which is 750,000 people.
If itâs 60% effective against infection, thatâs 40% of 3.75 million, which is 1.5 million.
All of the unvaccinated can be considered likely to catch it in a no restrictions environment. Thatâs 1.25 million.
So you can see how the numbers start to add up.
The only way to beat this is to work the population into a state of vaccine-induced immunity in which the R rate disintegrates.
As long as this virus is circulating around like it is now, there will always be more old people with failing immune systems to die from it, there will always be more immunocompromised people to die, and there will always be people who are just plain unlucky. And there will always be the risk of the virus becoming more transmissible and/or more lethal.
Basically, the virus, when circulating like it is now, will bring us down as a society.
There is no one reason we have such high infection rates right now, but there are a few key ones.
These are, in short: i) sharing an open land border with Plague Island and Northern Plagueland, ii) a policy response which over the last few months has been asleep at the wheel and has returned to the delusion of late 2020 and iii) the ultra-transmissible nature of Delta itself.
Thatâs where the social contract has broken down - in the delusional, lacksadaisical, directionless policy responses. And that has been repeated all over Europe, bar maybe Italy and Portugal, who are still managing to keep numbers down. Though that may not last.
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They can be trusted even less when theyâre sober
Back under the bed lads.
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Time to dust off the baking trays and the TFK 5K thread.
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Havenât touched the flip belt since June 
I remember my first lockdown
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Simpler times
The contrarian anti vaccers (anti everything) crowd will be thrilled, like itâs a vindication for their âcritical thinker 
stance
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Cheasty has been proven right too so everyoneâs a winner. Thatâs the great thing about covid everyone is right and wrong about everything
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#lockdownthefatties
No one can say that werenât warned about this last winter/Christmas also.
And Delta is much more transmissible than Kent.
Also, Nolan and NPHET. What the fuck?
The last advice around 22 October was âThere is a wave coming. Leave everything as is. Itâll peak around the end of November and tail offâ.
Now we have a potential 500 cases in ICU by mid December.
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Weâre back here largely because the Irish have a drink problem. Simple as that⌠I havenât gone for pints since January 2020⌠Iâve had food outside alright and had a pint but lads going into a pub to down alcohol and slobber all over the place have fucked us again⌠Weak cunts.
We are patriots mate.
So am I. Supporting local micro breweries from home.
The newer NPHET modelling factors in waning immunity so x amount of infections leads to a larger amount in hospital and ICU.
We need to close pubs until January. Fact.